WATCH! This is what Google’s Street View of the International Space Station looks like

Google's taking Street View to a place where there are no streets

We’ve already spoken (at length) about the impressive ‘time-sucking’ potential of Google Earth and Street View. And now, after conquering the summits and trenches of our planet, Google is taking Street View to a place that’s out of the world (quite literally) – the International Space Station. So if you’re already bored of staring at your own street (face it, we’ve all done that) or of window shopping in Paris, you could now actually pay a virtual visit to our astronauts’ home away from home.

But expecting too much out of the trip could end in disappointment. While there’s novelty to the idea of stepping into a place where only a few extremely well-qualified folks have, the ISS isn’t exactly a luxury resort. In fact, that much is quite clear as soon as one takes his first step into it through Street View, only to find a cramped tube with everything bolted to the walls so it doesn’t fly off.

But what it lacks in terms of luxury, the ISS makes up for in technology. In fact, its mere existence is a testament to human advancement. The first component of the ISS was launched from Earth in 1998 and since then it has been built or restored/maintained piece by piece over dozens of missions and hundreds of spacewalks by resident astronauts and cosmonauts. While it maintains itself in orbit around Earth at an altitude of 300 km-plus, The ISS has the distinction of being the only man-made satellite or object that is visible to the naked eye from Earth (under certain conditions).